Middleton Primary School

Our school curriculum is built around the needs of our children and the opportunities, skills and knowledge that we feel are essential in ensuring our children possess, not only the essential academic knowledge and skills, but to also develop their self-esteem and emotional literacy skills, which are essential for them to be happy and confident members of our school, community and world.

We cover all requirements of the National Curriculum, with several additions, that are personalised to Middleton Primary School and our pupils.

English and Mathematics are taken directly from the National Curriculum, although they are presented in the form of the Rising Stars as a planning and assessment tool. Guided reading sessions are taught explicitly throughout school. We also use the White Rose Hub for Maths. We are a Talk Matters trained school and you would see the Talk Matters strategies being used throughout the curriculum.

The Read, Write, Inc programme is used from Reception to Year 2 to teach phonics and is used with some Year 3 pupils where appropriate. This has been very successful in raising standards. There have been several opportunities for parents to learn more about this approach in order to support their child’s learning. We also use the Read, Write, Inc approach to spelling, once the children have completed the phonics programme.

We also have a big focus on promoting the love of books and reading with our children and families. We invest a large amount of money on offering a wide range of books, well-resourced reading corners, Kindles and I-pads and links on our website to promote the love of reading. We were all extremely excited when we opened our new School Library last year and it has been a great success.

English and topic skills are intertwined throughout the whole curriculum. This strong link ensures learning connections and high level literacy skills are evident in all areas. The large class portfolios and year group web notebooks shared on our website, give an insight into the outcomes gained by using this approach to learning. Mathematics and Science are also closely linked and used in this way.

We understand the importance of children being involved in asking questions and researching, presenting and making choices about their learning (see 'The Learning Challenge Approach' diagram below). All topics are posed as questions and children are involved in asking further questions and developing lines of enquiry, where possible. Stimulating introductions to learning and a significant amount of visits and visitors are used to ‘hook’ the children into their learning. These valuable first-hand experiences, combined with this approach, drives the engagement of our children and promotes a love of learning.
The Learning Challenge Approach Diagram:

As important as our core skills and embedding basic skills, is the importance of developing the social, moral, cultural, spiritual awareness, along with our emotional literacy skills. This PSHE aspect underpins our curriculum. Jigsaw is a programme which incorporates all of these PSHE elements as well as several aspects of safeguarding and the protective curriculum. Jigsaw connects various elements together, such as our assembly themes, songs, vision, awards and together with the weekly lesson for each class, really addresses the key challenges that face our young people. As well as threading these elements continuously throughout our curriculum, we also have focus weeks, these include: Anti-Bullying Week, Black History Week, Safety Week, an International Study Week, British Values, Fair Trade, Green Environmental Day, etc. Many of these outcomes are shared with parents. We also promote the ‘Forest Schools’ approach to support and develop the children’s emotional literacy skills and well-being.

We place a large emphasis on the environment and outdoor learning. We have up to 6 farm visits a year in order to educate our children about food and farming. Some classes also visit Skelton Grange Environmental Centre, linked to their science topics. We expect every child to be able to cook within school for at least 12 hours per year, using locally sourced produce – some of which come from our own school crops. Children take part in gardening activities and classes are timetabled to work with our School Gardener throughout the year, as well as taking place in class gardening activities. We have an excellent outdoor classroom with chickens and a range of resources to enhance learning. Each class uses our outdoor classroom at least once a fortnight.

We also encourage all of our Year 6 children to take part in a week long, outdoor education residential, in the second week of the academic year. This is heavily subsidised by school and it forms a key part of the Year 6 curriculum, along with building excellent relationships. There are several other residential visits which are offered each year, including Cober Hill, London and Lineham Farm.

We offer a wide range of after school clubs every night of the week and a 3-week long Summer School every year to encourage learning outside of the school day. We are part of The Learning Trust South Leeds and work closely with 5 other primary schools and one high school to promote learning across the community and can access resources across the Trust to enhance our curriculum.

September 2017

Curriculum Coverage
Please click here to access the 'Class Pages' for more information about the curriculum content for each year group. Additional information (including topic web plans, photographs and learning notebooks) is also available on these year group pages. Please see your child's class teacher if you have any further questions regarding our school curriculum.